Vacation

by Matthew John Costello

There was a narrow point where he’d have to walk out, exposed.

  An open area leading from the woods on one side of the property near the lake to the woods behind the cabins.

  Best just to stand up and walk.

  People still here, maybe even some ordinary guests—like the Blairs were, or Jack’s family.

  If Lowe felt confident he had things in hand, scaring Jack in the kitchen, all trussed up, then maybe Jack had time.

  He stood up and walked from one piece of woods to another, stepping across a bit of camp road. Until he got close to the other wooded section, and then he moved into it.

  Just taking a leak…

  And kept walking, deeper into the woods, until he stopped, crouched, waited.

  No sign of having been discovered.

  Crouching made the gun muzzles dig into him. Despite the pain, so good to know they were there.

  He started circling around, to the open field, and farther… to Shana’s cabin with its split sections of wood laying outside.

  * * *

  Jack waited, watching the cabin as he saw Shana moving around. At one point, she came out and he thought she might leave.

  But she simply stood in the open doorway, smoking, and then went back inside.

  He moved from his secluded cover. Again, he’d have to cross an open stretch of ground. And the clock had to be ticking. Sooner or later, someone had to come to the kitchen and find the dead cooks.

  At the end of the woods, he stood up, then ran up to her cabin as best he could. He pulled out the Glock, and threw open the door.

  He didn’t see Shana. And then she came out of a back room. With luck, what she was smoking wasn’t just tobacco.

  She looked up, confused.

  “Stop right there,” Jack said.

  She stopped moving.

  “Thought you had… another engagement. All tied up.”

  A laugh. She was stoned.

  “Sit the fuck down.”

  But even stoned, Shana turned and grabbed an arm weight off a back table and threw it awkwardly at Jack. He dodged it but she immediately leaped at him like an animal springing.

  Her weight sent them both falling back. And too quickly she had landed on top and was able to grab her ax leaning near the front door.

  Her right knee had pinned Jack’s arm holding the gun. She quickly smashed the butt of the ax into Jack’s jaw, once, then whipped it the other way for another hard smack.

  Stoned or not, she had gotten the advantage quickly.

  Who the hell trained her? She’d mentioned the army, but he’d never met a soldier who could be this efficient half-baked.

  “Want to play, Jack? Too bad it’s this—there are better games.”

  She rammed the ax into his midsection. Knocking all the wind out, and then she changed the angle.

  She’s going to use that ax on me.

  And I know how good she is with an ax.

  The gun useless. But Jack could slide his other arm free. Shana brought the ax back, her glassy eyes trained on him, perhaps picturing how she was about to split him like a tree trunk.

  His right hand shot up and wrestled for control of the ax handle against her strong two-handed grasp.

  He locked his arm, forcing her to twist the ax left and right in an attempt to free it.

  Forgetting the important job her right leg did in holding down his left arm.

  She had allowed enough room for that arm to slide free, and with it, the gun. He didn’t want to fire. A shot would end all his chances.

  But the muzzle made a nice piece of metal to jab into her side.

  Which he did, ramming it hard into her midsection.

  The ax slipped backward, still held by her but now being pushed away by his arm.

  He could sit up, and as he did that, he wrestled the ax away from her.

  He twisted the ax around and before she could recover her wind and mobility, he brought the end of the handle flying across her face.

  Just as she had done to him. Once, then again, and again, enjoying the blood, the stupefied look, and knowing that he could easily keep doing this until she was dead.

  But when she had almost become immobile, a beaten thing on the floor of the cabin, he pointed the gun at her, and lowered the ax.

  “Where is my family?”

  He knocked her chin, a hard tap with the blunt end of the head of the ax.

  She spit out some blood.

  “I don’t know… where the hell… your family is.”

  Another knock to the head with the ax, not to draw blood but letting the heavy metal smack her head back, hard against the floor.

  He did it a few times. Because he had no time.

  He needed an answer.

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know. Lowe didn’t tell me. Just that they were under guard.” Another great cough of spit and blood.

  Could be true, Jack thought. Could be fucking true.

  Which meant that there was only one person who could tell him where they were.

  “Okay. Listen. Let me tell you what’s going to happen. And if it doesn’t happen exactly the way I tell you, then I will, in my own amateur way, cut your fucking head off your fucking body. Understand?”

  The smallest of nods.

  “Sit up.”

  * * *

  “Ed, can you come down here? I need to talk. Something private.”

  Jack listened as she talked to Lowe.

  “No. Ed. Best we talk where no one can see.”

  He waited. Would Lowe tell her to come up and see him, security be damned?

  Did he like to play with Shana? Was that one of the perks?

  That might influence his decision.

  “Good. I’ll see you.”

  She put down the camp phone.

  “He’s coming.”

  “Good.”

  * * *

  Lowe walked into the cabin.

  Jack smashed the handle end of the ax into one knee, and Lowe collapsed into a crouch. Then his other knee, and Lowe was praying on the floor.

  Jack had Shana stand near the back of the cabin.

  “What the—”

  Now a smack right across the face, and Lowe’s lips bloodied.

  “Sit in that chair. Go on, get the hell up.”

  Lowe could see the gun now and knew that getting beaten by the ax might be the least of his troubles.

  He struggled to get to his feet, and stumbled over to the chair.

  “Tie him up. Tight as you can. And I know tight, so don’t fuck around.”

  Shana tied Lowe exactly as Jack had been tied. Had she been the one who trussed him up in the kitchen?

  In seconds, Lowe was firmly strapped to the chair.

  “Back away,” he said to Shana.

  He walked over to Lowe, stood in front of him.

  Jack used the flat head of the ax now like a pendulum, and smacking one knee, then the other. Lowe howled.

  “Next one hits your face, Lowe. Nice and hard.”

  “You’re dead.”

  “Okay.”

  Jack used the ax like a baseball bat, tilting the sharp edge away, and smashed it into Lowe’s face. The blow hard enough to make the chair rock back.

  “Where is my family, you sick fuck?”

  Lowe opened his mouth as if about to challenge Jack again. Jack saw his eyes look back to Shana, but Jack’s gun in his other hand kept her pinned to the wall.

  “No answer?”

  He brought the ax back again.

  “All right, all right! I’ll tell you. They’re fine. They’re okay.”

  “Where are they?”

  He brought the ax head close to Lowe’s face.

  “A cabin up near the service camp.” He looked right at Jack. “You’ve been up there.”

  “Lot of cabins. Which one?”

  “Toward the back. Away from the center. All by itself. Has a number out front, Cabin 12.”

  “Are they guarded?”

&n
bsp; Lowe nodded.

  “How many.”

  “Just one guy. They’re okay.”

  “You said that already.”

  “You could stay with us Jack. You still could—”

  “As if.”

  Lowe deserved another metal smack on the face.

  Was he telling the truth? No way to know until Jack got to that cabin.

  “Let me tell you something”—a look at Shana—“and you, too. If they aren’t there, you are both going to feel so much pain, you’ll wish this place was crawling with Can Heads. You’ll wish they were ripping you apart.”

  “They’re there,” Lowe said quietly.

  Jack realized that he just told them both that they’d be allowed to live.

  Insurance, to be sure. With them alive, his threat might actually mean something.

  He turned to Shana. Be quicker to kill her. Make her kneel and chop into her, kill the animal that she had become.

  But then, would he be any different than them?

  There were lines in his job—to cross, to not cross. Decisions, judgment calls. Ethics.

  Some guys on the job just let it go.

  “Kneel down, facing the wall,” he said to Shana.

  When she had done so, he put the gun and ax by his side.

  “Move, and your brains will be on the wall in front of you.”

  He tied her up, half expecting her to try something. But he guessed that she, too, wanted to live.

  He rushed; but in minutes, she was also tied up tight.

  He left the cabin, thinking…

  I’m close. I’m going to do this.

  Over and over.

  And wishing that he really believed it.

  39. Cabin 12

  He saw the cabin. Had to be. Larger than the other cabins. More rooms, and off by itself, exactly where Lowe said it would be.

  Jack couldn’t be sure unless he could see the number in the front. But no way that could happen. He’d have to find a way in through a window. He spotted a side door off one end.

  There was that way in, and the front, or maybe a window, and, and—

  All of them sucked. All of them so exposed.

  He spent a few minutes watching the area past the cabin, studying the workers, the people who lived here, these “civilized” people who ate humans and pretended to be different from the Can Heads.

  He turned away from the cabin.

  Too much activity all around it, people coming out, enjoying the summer night, socializing.

  Hey, neighbor, how are you tonight, and my—wasn’t that a good dinner?

  He had one shot at this.

  I can’t just run in there.

  He turned back to the woods and started making his way to the great fence that circled the property.

  Jack saw the shining mesh of the double fence, and blackness beyond it.

  But he also saw a metal box with shelled tubes and wires snaking in and out. Something to control the electricity that ran through the outer fence, keeping Paterville safe from the hordes outside.

  Not anymore, he thought.

  He pulled out the small explosive. Smaller than a grenade, it didn’t have a lot of kick. Kick a door in, clear a room—that was about it.

  But Jack imagined that it could also do damage to that electrical transformer. Did it need a direct hit? Would it do enough damage?

  Only one way to find out.

  The digital timer gave off a slight glow, not so much to attract attention, but enough for him to set it.

  How much time. A minute, perhaps? Enough time for him to get away.

  He had set it for sixty-eight seconds. Then he slid a latch to the right, exposing a single button. One punch and the countdown began.

  He pressed the button and then, eyes locked on the transformer, lobbed it. The small explosive landed short of the transformer. A few good feet.

  Fuck, Jack thought.

  Was it close enough?

  The seconds melted away. He could go for it, or start running.

  Still frozen, looking.

  “God damn it,” he said and he scurried toward the fence. Probably all on camera.

  He scooped up the explosive and pressed the button. He had blown his protective cover. He quickly added more time to the explosive, which had dwindled to twenty-three seconds.

  Then he placed the device right at the base of the fence, right under the transformer, and pressed the button again, turned and ran.

  Surely on camera.

  Being watched by the guards, who were already calling Ed Lowe, who somehow wouldn’t answer.

  Maybe waking up other guards.

  The whole night going wrong.

  Running through the woods, fast as he could.

  Then—the explosion.

  Seconds later, the alarm sound, the horns blaring from everywhere and nowhere, filling the camp.

  Back to Cabin 12.

  Everyone running like ants when their underground home had been exposed. People ran all over. Jack joined them with no one noticing anything.

  Good. That part fucking worked.

  That alarm meant only one thing: Can Heads could be breaking in.

  Would they? Jack wondered. Were they always lurking out there, waiting to stream into the camp whenever something went wrong with the fence?

  I sure as hell hope so.

  No hesitation now. Straight up the steps of the cabin. Into the living room. A guard spinning around.

  Not recognizing Jack. Confused by the alarm. Maybe scared. All alone.

  “What happened?”

  Doesn’t even know who the hell I am, Jack thought.

  Then, a flash of recognition on the guard’s face, perhaps seeing Jack covered with blood, his body and clothes becoming a map of this night.

  “Wait a fuck—” the guard said, his rifle muzzle lowering toward Jack.

  Jack shot him. A clean shot to the head. He heard screams from a room in the cabin.

  Jack grabbed the guard’s rifle, then grabbed a tablecloth from the dining room and threw it over the body.

  Then he turned to the screams, to the room, unlocking it with the key in the door.

  Opening the door. To see them. God, to see them, screaming, crying, but alive.

  40. The Plan

  Christie ran to Jack, ignoring everything that covered him. Kate went around to his side, saying over and over, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.

  Simon silently hugged him as tight as he could. Shivering with fear, locked on his father as though there was nothing else left in the world.

  But then Jack pulled them away, and looked just at Christie.

  “Listen,” he said to her. “We have to leave.”

  She nodded. Of course they had to leave.

  “Let’s go. C’mon kids—” she started.

  He grabbed her arms and held them fast, the strength of his grip nearly pinching.

  “No. Before we go…”

  She saw him look down, aware that the two terrified kids still stood there, looking up.

  Jack turned around and picked up the two .44s. He gave one to Christie, whose hand seemed to close over it reluctantly.

  His wife let the gun rest in her lap.

  Then he took Kate’s hand and closed it over the other gun.

  He had taken her to the range one day. She had shot a gun before. “This is the safety. You leave it on until we leave here. And you hold it pointed down. Unless… unless you have to—”

  “Shoot something,” she said.

  Her eyes glistened as she fought back the fear and tears. He smiled. A nod.

  Then, heartbreaking, unexpected…

  “Dad.” He turned back to Simon. “Dad, do I get a gun, too?”

  He leaned close and gave Simon a hug. Both Christie and Kate looking at Jack, seeing that his eyes had turned watery. He blinked, the cabin living room suddenly blurry.

  “Simon. Son. You have to do something really important, you hear me?”

  He felt the boy
nod. “You hold your mom’s free hand tight. Got that? Tight as you can. Don’t let her go. And the other one, you hold your sister’s hand. You hold onto them, Simon. Can you do that for me?”

  Another nod.

  Then, as if it was the hardest thing he ever did, Jack finally pulled away.

  They walked out. He leaned close to Christie.

  “I have a plan.”

  She watched him force a smile.

  His eyes, still glistening, told her something more than his words.

  There was no time for him to explain things to her privately, what would happen, what they would do.

  She’d have to hear his words even as the kids followed and they, too, listened. And she’d have to somehow understand what he was really saying.

  “Okay,” she said, letting him know that she understood.

  His eyes wet, tearing up with gratitude that she understood things.

  She couldn’t imagine what he had been through.

  Her heart felt like it could explode at the thoughts of the agony, the madness that he’d had to face. That he still had yet to face.

  He told her what would happen, pulling the kids alongside him through the brush even as the branches tried to trip them and rip at their bare arms.

  The camp filled with the sound of alarms and gunfire.

  “Did you—did you do that?”

  “Yeah. Keeps them busy.”

  His pace relentless, even though his one good leg was doing the work of two he marched them through the woods.

  Telling her the details of the plan, all said within earshot of the kids.

  So they heard, too.

  But did they understand?

  God, did they understand?

  Jack stopped them.

  A quick finger to his lips, barely visible in the dark.

  Something moved through the woods ahead. Jack trying to see what was there. Some movement. Maybe this was a bad way to go.

  Then a scream from behind. He wheeled around just in time to see a Can Head grab Christie and yank her away from the two kids. Then another Can Head picked up Simon, like a sack of food, tucking the boy under his arm and turning away.

  Like a feral creature racing away with its prize.

  Not even seconds to think about what to do, no time to weigh options.

  Jack had already raised his gun, but a shot could go wrong so easily. And there was movement to the left, where Kate was, coming from behind her even as his terrified girl raised her gun, wobbling.